


Take What You Need, Say Your Goodbyes

by LayALioness



Series: Half in Shadows/Half in Flame [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, sorry - Freeform, this is kind of turning into x-men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 16:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4145157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So there are others like you?” Monty asks, wistfully. Bellamy smiles towards him kindly.</p><p>“Yeah,” he nods. “Lots. Like, a pretty good portion of the general population, I’d say.</p><p>“So I know you said you’re not X-Men,” Raven muses, “But you’re kind of X-Men.”</p><p>“Nah,” Bellamy argues. “We don’t have fancy costumes. Or jets.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take What You Need, Say Your Goodbyes

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to Fear the Fall and Where We'll Land, so you should probably read that first if you wanna be on the up and up.
> 
> Title of this and the previous fic from "Beautiful Crime" by Tamer.

Clarke calls off work to stay home and babysit Bellamy. Raven calls off to stay and babysit Clarke.

Sometime in the mid-afternoon, Monty shows up to check on the stranger.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Raven demands crossly, tossing a throw blanket over Bellamy in a shoddy attempt to hide him.

“Raven calm down, Monty knows,” Clarke says wearily. Raven glares at her.

“What, so you told him about your superhero before me?” she asks, outraged.

“Technically, Monty told me about him,” Clarke muses. Monty gives half a smile.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “So technically, he’s _my_ superhero.”

“For all we know,” Clarke interrupts. “He’s not _anyone’s_ superhero.” Raven and Monty share a look of skepticism.

“Right,” Raven agrees, not at all convincingly.

Some hours later, Wick comes crashing in.

“Does nobody fucking _knock_ anymore?” Raven growls. Clarke doesn’t point out that Raven’s their resident lock-picker. She’s learning to pick her battles—it’s a work in progress.

“You said you were sick,” Wick explains. “And you weren’t answering your cell, so I figured you were with our resident medic.”

“She’s _my_ medic, you plagiarist,” Raven argues. “Go find your own!”

“ _Plagiarist_ ,” Wick splutters. “That’s not— _Jesus_ —go read a dictionary, Reyes. And eat some soup, for that imaginary flu of yours.” He glares at her half-heartedly. “I had to fix two dozen lo-jacks on my own, thanks to you.”

“Sorry,” Raven says, not at all apologetic. “Period cramps. You know how it is.”

“Actually I don’t,” Wick says with a raised brow. Raven shrugs, while Clarke tries to readjust the blanket over Bellamy discretely.

He chooses that exact moment to roll over with a pained groan, blanket shifting so his face and part of his neck is exposed. The room freezes as everyone holds their breath.

“What,” Wick says. Then, “Is that my cousin?” And finally, “Why is he hiding under a blanket?”

“He and Clarke had sex,” Raven declares. “Of the intimate variety.”

“As opposed to the other kind?” Wick deadpans. Clarke blushes furiously, but stays silent—it’s probably best for all involved that she doesn’t try to explain.

“It’s my fault,” Monty blurts. He doesn’t do well under pressure, especially when he’s hiding something. They all learned pretty quickly never to let him in on surprise birthday parties. “I found him in the dumpster because I needed to throw out the drugs, and I didn’t know what to do so I got Clarke because she’s a doctor, and we brought him up here because he said no hospitals or cops, and I didn’t mean to do anything illegal, I swear!” He pauses. “Well, except for the drugs, but they were only half mine, anyway.”

There’s a long moment where everyone processes what he’s just said, and then Wick heaves a sigh, rubs a hand through his hair, and collapses in Clarke’s side-of-the-road easy chair.

“You should probably start from the beginning,” he decides. So Clarke basically repeats what Monty’s already told them, but a little more coherently, and then pulls the blanket away so they can all see the bandaged knife wounds. Wick winces at the sight, but none of them are particularly squeamish—well, except Monty, but he turns around during that part.

“And that’s when you showed up,” Clarke finishes. “There. Now you all know as much as I do—which isn’t really anything at all, and I won’t know more until your asshole cousin wakes up and tells me what the hell is going on.”

There’s a wet cough from the sofa, and they all turn to find Bellamy staring blankly with his eyes open. He gives a slow blink and sighs. “How bad is it?”

Clarke pauses. “Well, your ribs are cracked, but you’ll probably be fine.” _Hopefully_ , she adds in her head. “But my sofa is definitely stained beyond repair.”

He gives a shaky chuckle, and then tries to sit up. Clarke rushes to push him back down. “You’ll split your stitches,” she scolds. “And I worked really hard on them, so you’d better not.” He grips her elbows with white knuckles and grimaces as she lowers him down.

“How long before I can leave?” he asks, wearily.

“How long before you tell us what the fuck happened to you?” Raven counters.

Bellamy frowns. “Preferably never,” he says. “The less you know, the better.” Raven scoffs.

“This isn’t a comic book, Blake,” she snaps. “We all know your secret identity already; you can cut the crap.”

Bellamy stares up at the ceiling, as if mustering up the patience to explain. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. But I’ll have to start from the beginning.”

 

“That’s it?” Wick asks in disbelief. “You got splashed by hazardous waste which gave you super senses, and then learned martial arts from an old blind woman at an orphanage.”

“Half-way house,” Bellamy corrects. “So they could keep me and O together.”

“And your sister,” Clarke cuts in, for the first time in the last thirty minutes that Bellamy’s been telling his story. “What happened to her? Is she okay? Is she like you?”

Bellamy ducks his head to hide a smile, like he’s happy she asked. “Yeah,” he says. “She’s okay. She’s like me, but different. Not blind, for starters. And with different…abilities.”

“Like what,” Raven asks. “Can she control the weather? Read minds? Does she suck your life force when she touches you?”

Bellamy grins wryly. “We’re not X-Men, Reyes,” he drawls. “You were right—this isn’t a comic book.”

“Okay so what happens now?” Clarke wonders. “You just told us a lot of things that I’m guessing are supposed to be secret. Is there some superhero code you just broke? Will you get in trouble?”

“What do you think’s gonna happen,” Raven asks Clarke with a raised brow. “Time-travel cops are gonna pop out at us and erase our memories while they lock him in some time loop?”

“Do you equate everything in life to movies?” Bellamy asks.

“Yes,” Clarke, Raven and Wick answer at once.

“So there are others like you?” Monty asks, wistfully. Bellamy smiles towards him kindly.

“Yeah,” he nods. “Lots. Like, a pretty good portion of the general population, I’d say.

“So I know you said you’re not X-Men,” Raven muses, “But you’re kind of X-Men.”

“Nah,” Bellamy argues. “We don’t have fancy costumes. Or jets.”

“The costumes are the easy part,” Monty says, and Clarke’s pretty sure he’s going to start on them as soon as he leaves her apartment. “And Raven could build you a jet.”

Raven scoffs, but she doesn’t deny it.

“You guys are definitely taking this a lot better than expected,” Bellamy decides.

“How did you expect us to take it?” Clarke wonders. He tips his head in thought.

“Denial. Disgust. Damnation. Any big D words, really.”

“Your lack of faith is disturbing,” Raven drones.

“I’m sorry to interrupt this cute, friendly banter,” Wick says drily, “But I’m still a little confused as to how my cousin, who I’ve known _my entire life_ , is secretly a superhero. Like, what?”

“Which aspect of the scenario confuses you?” Bellamy asks. “I’m happy to clear it up.”

“ _My whole life_ , Blake! I told you when I got my first chest hair—I told you when I lost my virginity, _how_ I lost my virginity—you _live with me_ , for Christ’s sake!” Wick pauses. “Were you _ever_ gonna tell me?”

Bellamy lets the silence hang between them, until Wick nods, resigned and sorry-looking. “Right. Okay.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, and then stands suddenly. “I think, yeah I think I’m gonna go.” He doesn’t let the door slam behind him, which is a lot more telling than if he had.

Raven looks stricken, glancing from the door to Bellamy to Clarke before deciding, “I’ll go after him.”

Then it’s just Bellamy, Monty and Clarke. Clarke looks at Monty meaningfully, raising her eyebrows for added effect. He squints at her, as if trying to read her like a sight-test board. Finally, his face slackens in understanding.

“I’m, uh, going to go find Jasper. We have a, uh, thing. I forgot. Anyway,” he declares, completely obvious. He crosses over to the door and then pauses. “Hey Bellamy, thanks for trusting us with this. It means a lot. Uh, good luck with the healing stuff, I guess.” And then he’s gone.

“Did you chase Monty off just to get me alone, Princess?” Bellamy asks with a grin.

“Hardly,” she shoots back, and then blushes furiously because _yes of course she did_. “I just don’t want you over-exerting yourself and dying on my sofa.”

“I hardly think laying down counts as any sort of exertion,” he says wryly. “And I thought you said the sofa’s a lost cause.”

“There are certainly forms of exertion you can do lying down,” Clarke muses. “And it’s a nice sofa. I might just dye it red, or something, you know, less obvious.”

Bellamy’s blushing now, and so is she, and they look positively ridiculous, the pair of them; but that’s not stopping her from wanting to show him exactly what kind of exertion she means.

You know, in case he’s not clear on that.

“We met before, you know,” he blurts, and then looks about ready to let her sofa swallow him whole. It’s entirely too endearing for her to handle, so she focuses on putting away the bandages and repacking her first aid kit.

“Oh?” she asks, mostly so he can’t take the words back.

“Yeah,” his voice cracks and he clears his throat. “Before the library. You, uh, I don’t think you knew it was me.”

Now she’s intrigued, pausing in her work to glance at him. “Really? When? How do you know it was me?”

He smiles, shy and private, like an inside joke. “You, uh. Had the same heartbeat. And your shampoo, or soap maybe, I don’t know. Peaches and coconut.”

Clarke’s mouth has gone dry by now, and she definitely doesn’t have enough coordination to repack _anything_ at the moment. “Lots of people use peaches and coconut,” she finally says.

“Not like yours.”

“Bellamy…” she trails off, not sure what she’s intending to say. She’s not really clear on words right now, what they mean or how to use them. It’s entirely unfair that she can like him so much, while he has no idea what he does to her.

He clears his throat again. “So, don’t I get some soup or something?”

Clarke pauses for a moment while his words sink in. “Soup?”

“Don’t sick people get soup? I thought that was the rule, or something.”

She fights the urge to roll her eyes, and then does it anyway since he can’t see her. “First of all, you’re not sick, you’re injured,” she argues. “Second of all, that’s definitely not a _rule_ , more like a guideline, if I’d feel so inclined.”

“Is that a no?”

Clarke sighs and stands to put her kit away. “Go to sleep, Bellamy,” she says. “Doctor’s orders.”

Clarke learns pretty quickly that when Bellamy doesn’t have sleep or clumsy attempts at flirting to distract him from bedrest, he’s an absolute terror. He becomes irritable and refuses to let her feed him, or help him with his clothes, so when he spills or gets his arms stuck, he snaps and glowers. She tries to keep hold of what little patience she’s managed to forge as a doctor, but he blows through that cache quickly, until they’re spitting at each other like cats for the rest of the day.

“Do you want another blanket?” Clarke asks wearily. He spilled tomato soup on the other, so it was in the wash. He was still shirtless, and while she didn’t necessarily _mind_ the view, she knew it probably felt uncomfortable.

“No,” he says petulantly. His arms are crossed, and he’s facing the ceiling. He looks like a defiant toddler refusing to go to bed.

“How about music?” she tries. “To take your mind off the pain?”

Bellamy scoffs. “I’m not in pain,” he sniffs, “And I don’t need a distraction—what I _need_ is to go, before they—”

“Before they track you down here and kill us both,” Clarke sighs. “Yes. You’ve said.” He’s refused to tell her who the ambiguous _they_ is, but she’s pretty sure her knowing wouldn’t make much of a difference. “Look, it’s been nearly a whole day and they haven’t found us. I think it’s safe to say we’ll be alright.”

Bellamy scoffs again but doesn’t argue, which is a first. He’s probably getting tired again, which is good and bad. She’ll relish the quiet when he finally drifts off, but each time he wakes up he’s just angry he fell asleep in the first place.

She’s in the bathroom when someone knocks at the door—which means it’s someone she doesn’t know. She goes rigid, thinking instantly of Bellamy’s mysterious _they_ , before she realizes she’s being ridiculous. It could be one of her neighbors that isn’t Raven or Monty or Jasper. Or a mailman. A mailwoman. Neighborhood kids selling chocolates for school.

She dries her hands and heads to the front door.

A hand grips her shoulder while a second snakes around her front, closing over her mouth—tight enough to muffle her scream, but loose so she can breathe. She bites the skin of their palm, hard, and stomps on their foot.

Bellamy grunts and swears, hissing “ _Damn_ , Clarke—” and she whirls around, outraged.

Another knock sounds before she can yell at him, and he looks so desperate that for a moment she can’t move. From outside the door, she hears footsteps retreating down the hall.

“See?” she whispers, trying to calm him. And herself, a little, but mostly him. “It was no one. Probably a Jehovah’s Witness, or something.”

Bellamy’s lips pull together tightly. “Or something,” he agrees. Then he pauses and cocks his head, listening to something she couldn’t be able to hear if she tried.

And then he’s shoving her back towards her bedroom, bare feet not making a sound against her floor—which is just unfair, really, he’s hardly putting in any effort and he’s still completely silent—as she awkwardly flails along before him.

He manages to lock her bedroom door right before there’s a crash, and the sound of wood cracking. Clarke’s heart sinks down to her stomach. “It’s them, isn’t it?” He only frowns, rifling through her closet, fingering each garment before yanking her father’s old Michigan State sweatshirt over his bare chest.

“Out the window,” he whispers, and she doesn’t hesitate. She grabs his arm and helps him onto the fire escape, and then they’re taking the steps two at a time down to the alleyway.

She spares a glance for the dumpster he’d been in just that morning, before following him down the street.

“Where are we going?” she demands, having to work double time to keep up with his long strides. She keeps checking over her shoulder, looking for any burly men with facial scars that might be following. She realizes in a distant sort of way that the strangers looking for them could be completely normal-looking, or female, or teenagers—but she can’t shake that image from her head.

“Somewhere safe,” Bellamy growls, and even after he tried explaining his strange sight-like ability, she’s still not really sure how he manages to know when to dodge a pedestrian, or sidestep the uneven sidewalk cracks.

“Which _is_ ,” Clarke presses—she’s pretty much done with waiting until he’s ready to let her in on things. Someone is most likely trashing her apartment, which means she’ll be out her deposit _and_ have to replace the front door, so the least he can do is give some straight answers.

“You’ll see,” he says, exasperated, which. The _nerve_ of him being irritated, when she’s the one being dragged along to some unknown destination and probably hunted down by the Russian mob. Or something.

She huffs something out to that effect, and he stops so suddenly she crashes into his back. He turns, reaching up to put a palm on each of her shoulders, and she could swear he’s looking her in the eye as he speaks.

“Do you trust me?”

And it’s ridiculous; she barely even _knows_ him—he’s blind but not really, with some sort of mysterious backstory that reads like something out of a Stan Lee comic. He’s being chased by some unknown _they_ , and he’s a part-time vigilante. And he might be homeless. She thinks.

“Yes,” she declares. “But I still want to know where we’re going.”

Bellamy smiles, wryly, but it’s there. “You can’t tell anyone,” he warns, and that’s just _perfect_. How much more broody can he possibly get? She’s pretty sure he’s at the limit.

“Who would even believe me?” she scoffs, and he doesn’t argue, which means he realizes she’s probably right.

He takes her hand before walking again. She tries not to make it a big deal. She’s cool. She’s collected. She’s not picturing herself as Lois Lane.

To her surprise, the next time he stops them they’re only two blocks from her apartment. They’re standing in front of a metal garage door, barely visible through the layers of graffiti, and set off to the side of a foreclosed brick building. It’s shabby and it smells terrible and it’s exactly the sort of place she’d expect a secret superhero’s headquarters to be.

She can’t help but scoff. He grins, like he knows what she’s thinking, and she realizes he probably does, and she kind of likes the idea of that.

He lets go of her hand to knock on the metal. She tries not to miss the feel of his palm.

He only knocks twice, which she guesses might be a code or something, but if it is it’s kind of shitty. There’s a scuffle from inside, and then the strain of a pulley as the door slides up slowly.

“What is this?” Clarke asks, trying not to sound nervous. It’s a little late to back out now, and she probably can’t outrun him anyway.

He grins over at her, more relaxed than she’s seen since the fundraiser. “I know I said we’re not X-Men,” he says. “But we kind of are.”


End file.
